


Turn a New Page; Tear the Old One Out

by we_are_all_sherlocked (BoudicaBabe)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, FYJLFF Red Pants entry, Fluff, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Pre Reichenbach, Red Pants, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoudicaBabe/pseuds/we_are_all_sherlocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey guys!</p><p>I'm posting this as entry for the FYJLFF Red Pants contest! I really hope you enjoy it!</p><p>The title is taken from the "How We Operate" by Gomez.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Turn a New Page; Tear the Old One Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> I'm posting this as entry for the FYJLFF Red Pants contest! I really hope you enjoy it!
> 
> The title is taken from the "How We Operate" by Gomez.

“Sher- Sherrrlock. Ahhh, fuck. Oh fuck. _Fuck yes, Sherlock._ ”

“Yes, yes, John. Oh god. Johnjohnjohn. Please, oh _John_ -”

Sherlock and John collapsed in a sweaty heap on the bed breathing like they’d just done a lap around London. “Jesus, Sherlock. If I had known you’d react like that, then I would’ve worn these earlier.”

Sherlock made his trademark tsk-ing noise as he pretended to not really care, but the overall effect was diminished as it was muffled in the crook of John’s neck. As John moved to get up, Sherlock’s supposed apathy was further undermined by the disappointed huff he let out as he unwrapped his legs from around John. 

“I love you Sherlock, but I’d prefer to not be glued to you,” John sighed in explanation, grabbing a flannel in the bathroom and wetting it. “Plus, I’m running out of shirts because we’re too lazy to get out of bed, and they are closer.”

Kneeling next to Sherlock and leaning across him, John watched Sherlock’s stomach muscles flex underneath the soft touch of the flannel. It was silly, but John loved cleaning Sherlock up; he loved taking care of him. Sherlock was all too happy to let him, not that he’d admit his soft spot for the intimate action. 

Sherlock carded his hand through the hair on the left of John’s head before letting it drop to his neck, slightly curled, two fingers resting lightly on his pulse and thumb pressed across his jaw line. 

John smiled and tossed the flannel in the general direction of what they liked to pretend was a dirty laundry pile but was really just an entire corner of the room covered in their clothes. Then John leaned down into the lips of his lover and kissed him deeply, sliding one hand to cradle the back of Sherlock’s head and letting the other rest lazily on Sherlock’s collarbone drawing circles. They kissed open-mouthed with a tangle of tongues but without any heat. It was the kind of kiss that spoke of intimacy, being close without the cloudiness of lust. This would have to be, if John had to choose, his favorite type of kiss, lazy and post coital. 

This being said, he was not really upset when suddenly Sherlock did something frankly amazing with his tongue and brought the heat back into the kiss. What did upset him was when Sherlock pulled John on top of him before rolling to get John onto his back, Sherlock’s torso covering John’s. Their legs were in a messy heap that he tried to untangle. “Sherlock, we just-” Sherlock bent his head to kiss below the doctor’s ear and felt the moment that John’s thoughts disorganized. “Sherlock!” John sputtered indignantly as he tried to regain some dignity. “We literally just finished!”

“I know, but I can’t stop thinking about you in those bright red pants.” Sherlock shifted his legs to press one knee between John’s thighs as he began to harden against the firm line of John’s hip. He suckled what he hoped would be a small love bite onto his neck. “When I watched you put them on this morning, God, I wanted to have you right then, but we had a case.” John also began to twitch to hardness on Sherlock’s stomach as he listened to Sherlock’s voice lower an octave. The lovely cupid’s bow of Sherlock’s lips felt at home as it came to rest softly on the shell of the army doctor’s ear. “All day, I was fighting to keep myself from being hard, but I knew you had those pants on just for me, and ahhh… I just couldn’t stand it.” 

“Oh god, Sherlock…” Sherlock pressed one elbow into the bed, using the other to reach between them. John squirmed underneath him with a delicious groan, finally slotting them together so Sherlock could wrap his hands around both of their pricks. “Don’t—ah… stop talking.”

“Finally, I got you home… Ah, mm— and you were so oblivious, but all I could think about was the—oh God—delicious white and red against the soft tan of your stomach. I wanted you to fuck me—oh, oh… right there against the door. _John._ ” The last word was moaned, drawn out; Sherlock’s voice dropped even lower. John shivered as though he could feel the bass of Sherlock’s voice vibrate through him. 

Words were a bit superfluous from that point on as Sherlock sped up his hand slickened with their arousal and sweat, and as they came, one after the other, they forgot how to even shout each other’s name. Their orgasms were sounded out with moans and grunts and sighs. 

John complained half-heartedly as he once again trekked to the bathroom to grab a flannel, but truly once he wrapped his arm Sherlock for the night, he couldn’t have been happier. 

The red pants became a regular part of John’s wardrobe. 

________________________________________

Months passed before the red pants become a topic of conversation again. 

John and Sherlock were awakened by banging on their door, though neither of them was dressed for company (read: not dressed at all). They groaned in unison as they heard Lestrade’s voice float through the entrance to the apartment. 

“Calm down, Lestrade. No need to beat the door down. It’s brutish.” Sherlock’s annoyed yell must have been heard because the banging stopped. Sighing, the two knew there wasn’t much time before it resumed.

The lovers haphazardly grabbed at clothing, hurrying, no doubt, to solve another case for the Yard. As John looked up, blinking away his sated sleep, he noticed that Sherlock had currently put on John’s red pants. “Sherlock, what are you doing?”

A wicked smirk took up the dark-haired detective’s face as he pulled trousers over his favorite pair of pants. “I promise you can take them back after the case is solved.”

“Fucking tease,” John grumbled pulling up his own pants and trousers facing away from the git that he called his lover, “I better get them back.” 

Sherlock pulled on the shorter man’s belt loops to bring his tanned bare back flush against his own pale chest. “Oh believe me,” he breathed over the shell of John’s ear, “this is a promise I intend to keep, repeatedly if we’re lucky.” John shivered as he pressed backward into Sherlock’s chest. 

The moment was broken by Lestrade resuming his banging in full force. John jumped, startled, and the contact was gone. Pulling on the rest of their clothes, the only two consulting detectives in the world answered the door. 

As with most cases, they got themselves into a bit of trouble. Sherlock managed to back them both into a dead end in a dingy little alley while the suspect (an idiot even by John’s standards) rapidly approached, gun in hand. “John, go, I can deal with this.”

John was not impressed. The criminal may have been an idiot, but he’d seen plenty of idiots in the army who managed to kill people quite regularly. “Actually, you have a promise to fulfill, and I’d hate to make a liar out of you.”

“You are sickeningly sentimental.” Twin smiles spread across their faces. It was in that lucky moment that the criminal hesitated, confused by the slightly unnerving grins being displayed. And as it played out, that moment was all they needed. John easily disarmed him, grabbing the gun with one hand as he turned to deliver an elbow to the assailant’s temple. The former soldier already had it leveled with his finger on the trigger before the man opened his eyes from the hit. 

Sherlock called Lestrade as John pressed the man against the wall, arm across his neck, gun cocked and ready. Scotland Yard carted him away happily.

Lestrade felt the two men were distracted as they sat in his office making their reports. John kept looking at Sherlock pointedly, as Sherlock, for the first time ever, leisurely and completely filled out his paperwork. The detective inspector couldn’t help but smile as John pulled Sherlock up and yanked him out of the room before the ink had time to dry. Neither of them remembered to say goodbye. 

John barely got him through the door to 221B before he had him against the wall, kissing and sucking on Sherlock’s neck while removing their clothes and listening to the debauched genius’ rumbling moans. 

Sherlock and John don’t know who appreciated the promise being kept more, but there was a desperate edge to their lovemaking that night, as though they might have considered a very different ending to the alley, an ending where promises were broken. 

The red pants became a regular part of Sherlock’s wardrobe as well. 

\--------------------------------------------------

The day Sherlock jumped, he wore the red pants. 

John felt his world caving in as he fought to keep his voice understandable on the phone. “Sherlock, you have a promise to fill, and you can’t convince me that you’re a liar.” He believed that he could hear a sad, sad smile in Sherlock’s last goodbye. 

_________________________________________________________

Mycroft showed up to 221B with a pile of clothes a week after Sherlock jumped from a roof, four days after he’d punched Mycroft at the funeral ( the bruise now satisfactorily showing mottling colors), and three days after he’d cried at Sherlock’s headstone. To say John was surprised would be quite an understatement. 

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here?” John was snarling. He had just walked in from visiting Sherlock’s grave. Again. 

Mycroft had, of course, made himself quite comfortable in Sherlock’s old chair. A pile of folded clothes that John immediately recognized as Sherlock’s lay on the table. “Sherlock never asked me for anything in his adult life,” Mycroft spoke in a distant fashion, sad but not allowed to be, and stood, “except on the day of his death. He asked me to give you his clothes.”

The anger had bled out of John’s shoulders, but his hands clenched and unclenched into fists. To be honest, he couldn’t have said whether he was angry at Mycroft for his audacity or Sherlock for being determined to be right and keep his promise even in death. 

Seeing that there would be no reply, Mycroft turned to leave. He hated to just walk away, but he could not clean up this mess for Sherlock. The government still hadn’t learned to mend broken hearts. 

John didn’t even wait for him to get out the door to start unfolding the articles that were sickeningly stiff with blood. His hand didn’t shake as he pulled up Sherlock’s coat, scarf, shirt, suit jacket, trousers, socks, and shoes. John paused for a moment. He looked at table and then the floor and around the living area in general. Where were the red pants? He knew that Sherlock was wearing them that day. 

He took the stairs two at a time, barely making it to the elder Holmes brother as he was getting into one of his sleek black chauffeured cars. John caught the car door with his hand before Mycroft had a chance to close it. “Are you sure you got everything? Something is missing.” 

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, as though missing something was akin to pigs flying. “No, I was very, very thorough.” Then he gave him a meaningful look as he reached for the door handle. 

John stepped back onto the curb, allowing the door to close and the car to pull away. His brain spun with questions that couldn’t be answered and a voice telling him that it meant nothing, but he couldn’t help smiling as he walked up the stairs to the flat. 

Sometimes when the overwhelming loneliness got to him, John dreamed of red and white. 

________________________________________________

It had been almost three years when John walked up the stairs to the sound of violin music. Despite the fact that he knew Sherlock had already heard him, the army doctor took a moment to get his bearings outside the doorway and silently thanking his lover for the warning that violin was meant to give. The playing stopped. 

Turning the knob, John found it unlocked. Taking a deep breath, he pressed it open to find Sherlock standing in his living room, bow in hand, violin still tucked under his chin, wearing only John’s red pants. 

Sherlock decided that it had been a terrible idea only after he saw John. It was quite presumptuous for him to disappear and then suddenly reappear in only his pants. Three years had found Sherlock thinner with shorter hair, barely enough to form soft curls at his hair line. He had no idea if John was angry or not or if he would even want to continue their relationship. He sat the bow and violin on the same table where John had laid Sherlock’s bloody clothes. Sherlock felt like he might as well not even be wearing the pants for how naked he felt under John’s gaze. 

“Took you long enough,” John said, full of false bravery. He took a few steps closer to where Sherlock stood. “I knew you couldn’t stand dying a liar.”

“I did make a promise.”

“Yes. Yes, you did.” 

John and Sherlock burst into laughter at the time. “I had no idea you could be so sentimental, Sherlock.” 

“Oh, shut up.”

“Make me.” The challenge in John’s eyes was clear.The laughter stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Sherlock took one long stride to John. 

The kiss was all desperation and tongue and small noises given and taken and short pants to breathe. Their teeth clashed and the pressure was enough to bruise, but all they could think was, “ _More. Yes. Harder._ ” Sherlock pressed his hands to his lover’s neck, slightly curled, fingers resting lightly on his pulse and thumbs pressed across his jaw line; it was a mirror of the first time the red pants had appeared. John’s hands flew up the nape of Sherlock’s neck to bury his fingers in the hair there, both new and entirely familiar. 

Sherlock began to desperately pull at John’s clothes, and John obliged him. His jacket was thrown the floor. The kiss was literally broken only long enough for John to pull his jumper over his head and to push his trousers and pants down before being thwarted by his shoes. Sherlock leaned back down into the kiss, slowing it as he led John backwards to the couch before pushing him gently to sit. 

With precision, Sherlock kneeled to remove John’s shoes and sock and tug his trousers and pants the rest of the way off. Tenderly, he ran his hands along the back of John’s calves up over his knees and thighs across his chest and down his arms before cupping his face. John let out a soft sigh at the contact. Sherlock straddled him, and John reached up to cup his hips gently. 

Sherlock leaned their foreheads together; both of them just sat breathing each other’s breaths. “John, I missed you.”

“God, I missed you so much,” John managed to reply, his chest constricting painfully. Then he leaned up slightly to press his lips against his very much alive lover. Sherlock’s lips parted beneath John’s with a soft exhale, as though he was going to speak. John stopped him with a finger pressed softly to his lips. “We can discuss all the important stuff tomorrow, but right now…” Sherlock kissed the finger softly. “You have a promise to keep.”

John pressed his hands flat across the expanse of Sherlock’s ribs and slipped them down in one firm movement to his red-covered hips. Hooking his fingers into the white waistband, John slid them down. Sherlock moved off John to pull the pants completely off before sliding them up John’s legs. “Sherlock, isn’t that a bit counterproductive to getting all of the clothes off?”

“Not for what I have planned.” Sherlock managed to navigate John’s half-hard erection out of the front of the pants. John shifted beneath him to comfortably allow it. Sherlock produced a small bottle of lube, and slicked his hand before using it to bring John to full hardness. “I prepared myself for you while I was waiting, John.” John groaned as Sherlock leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I touched myself thinking about riding you with you wearing just these pants. I thought about that first time I saw you wear them, and how I talked to you just like this.” Sherlock shifted his hips forward and guided John’s newly slicked and very much fully hard prick inside of him. He couldn’t help but moan. 

John was suddenly grabbing Sherlock’s hips with bruising force. “Fu- _uck._ ” Sherlock let John breathe for a moment, and then he braced his hands against the wall above the couch on both sides of John’s head. He began to rock up and down, leveraging his knees to try to find the right angle. He could feel the brush of fabric on each downwards stroke, and it was driving him crazy. Underneath him, John was struggling to not come undone too quickly. 

John was holding onto Sherlock’s hips punishingly hard. Sherlock let out a loud moan as he found a better angle and increased his pace. “Oh God, Sherlock.” John moved his legs a bit to find a solid position and then reached back and grabbed the ledge of the couch to press against. He now found himself able to thrust upwards into Sherlock as the lithe man bore down on him. For a moment, both of them saw white, panting in unison.

Sherlock found himself in a rare moment of inability to say anything other than, “John, yes. Yes, John. Please.” He moved his hands down to John shoulders and arched his body for that one angle he knew would make them both come as John met his every movement halfway. It was surprising how easy it was for them to remember their partner’s bodies so well. 

“Jesus Sherlock, I forgot how fucking gorgeous you looked on top of me. Come for me.” Throwing his head back Sherlock managed to make a noise that may have been John’s name, as John slammed into Sherlock’s prostate. “I know I can make you come without touching you.” Sherlock dug his fingers into the ex-soldier’s shoulders, barely aware enough to avoid his scar, and stared right into John’s eyes. He saw it all there: pain, hurt, relief, want, happiness, and his never failing love. Sherlock was coming undone.

“Oh god please, John— _John, yes._ ” The last two words were sobbed out as John snapped his hip just right, causing his world to focus down to John, only John, just John. He yelled John’s name as came.

Sherlock was so caught up in his own orgasm that he didn’t even see when John finished. He only noticed John when he felt his hands coming to tangle in Sherlock’s sweat drenched hair. Sherlock leaned forward to press his forehead against John’s and to move his hands to take up their favorite residence at John’s neck, fingers almost touching at the nape. “Well, now that I’ve returned the pants, I’ve got to go.”

“You’re a bloody tosser.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Once again, though feeling like a lifetime before, the red pants became regular in their wardrobes.


End file.
